i just finished reading the book of drugs by mike doughty and i probably should take a minute to let it soak in, but i feel so…conflicted.

let me start by saying that i’m a huge mike doughty fan. not just soul coughing (but DEFINITELY SOUL COUGHING; that’s one of my all time favorite bands) - i’m a fan of mike doughty himself, his writing, his music, his glasses, his constant internet presence, his voice, his round head. i like him a lot, so i was kind of excited about this book.

many months ago, on the twitter, doughty expressed his annoyance with people asking him about soul coughing. he kept saying how that band is dead to him. when pressed, because twitter will always press you, he said the book will explain everything.

and it does..? in it we read about one michael doughty, the son of an uptight drunk military man and a stressed out, constantly venting woman. he spent some years in an unorthodox college, worked the door of a world renowned music dive, and stumbled upon three musicians who were able to release the sounds from inside his head. sadly, these three musicians also did a number on our young doughty, making him feel as if his talents were negligible. after years of the emotional abuse, doughty snapped and ended the band.

he did all of this while being fucked up. SEVERELY fucked up. he was a junkie. a big ol’ drug-using junkie.

it wasn’t a surprise to me; i had heard the rumors, but i didn’t realize the extent of his drug use. and it makes it harder for me to…well, to feel for him, to be honest. i’m usually very empathetic; i was prepared to read his story and cheer him on. however, the voice inside my head kept yelling, “you are a fucking junkie.”

and to my eye, a junkie for no good reason. i’m not dismissing the family dynamics or the possible mental health issues. i’m just saying that people make it through every day with the same basic background and they manage to do it without sniffing black tar heroin. having a band who doesn’t like you doesn’t make you some sort of delicate flower who needs weed & coke & full bottles of jack daniels to survive.

doughty has cleaned up now, something else he discusses in the book. he also takes a moment to tell all of the former soul coughing fans that every time they (we?) ask him about SC, they (we?) are essentially saying “fuck you” to him. oh, word? well, let me take a moment to say it directly:

fuck you, m. doughty. fuck you for trying to make me feel like shit for enjoying your music. and again, i’m not just a SC fan - i saw you on your post-SC, sweaty skittish tour (atlanta and athens), bought the cd directly from you. i have your solo records, even the ones that sound a bit too adult contemporary for my tastes. i’ve allowed your voice to be hard-wired into the happy section of my brain. i will probably continue to be a fan; i still follow you on twitter & tumblr and i’ll look you up on whatever the next revolutionary internet thingamajig will be. i hope that you continue with the recovery & healing process and that you get to the point that you no longer hear “fuck you” when you encounter a SC fan, but that you recognize that your work and your talent - something YOU MADE - has touched another person’s soul in a way that they felt compelled to share with you.

(is this me dealing with doughty falling from grace in my eyes? perhaps. i’m not in the habit of putting people on pedestals; i rarely talk to musicians after a show because i figure they just got off work. but the feelings that this book stirred up made me realize that i held him in high regard.)

at any rate, doughty’s writing is wry, clean & concise. his flow is engaging enough that you don’t even miss the chapter designation. and if you like tales of rock star debauchery, then this should do the trick. i hope you’re able to enjoy it without all of the weird soul searching & changes in perspective that i’m going through.

i get it, guys. red tails. i need to see it - the fate of black cinema rests on me going to see a movie about a subject i have no interest in. [That doesn’t matter. Go see it. - Blackness Barometer Ed.]

i’m not hating to be hating. when george lucas went on the daily show and bluntly stated that all of the hollywood studios turned him down because they didn’t know what to do with a black movie, i admired his moxie. i wasn’t surprised by the news, since i’m a black person who follows pop culture, but i liked that lucas was fired up about it.

that said, i didn’t necessarily agree with the whole “if you don’t see this, then nobody will make a movie with black people ever again!!” scare tactic. i mean, what are studios going to do, cancel all of the movies with 2 or more black people coming down the pike? nobody paid to see soul plane in the theaters and somehow precious got made. also, that studios said no to george lucas seemed to blow his mind the most. thirdly, jar jar binks.

but whatever - good on him for letting everyone know how hollywood gets down…

until i realized that lucas isn’t the director. this guy is. anthony hemingway. this is his first feature film. before this he directed episodes of CSI:NY and treme. (also the episode of community where shirley and chang hook up, which, come on now…)

why did i not find out that the director of red tails was a young black man making his directorial debut until the day the movie came out? why has it only been george lucas’ big shiny mug all over the place? if he cared so much about the future of black cinema, why didn’t he have hemingway do some of the press with him, introduce him to the world?

(other questions: how does someone who has only done relatively sedate television shows suddenly get a big budget action movie dripping in special effects? did lucas basically hire a figurehead? UH, YA THINK?)

and don’t get me started on aaron mcgruder working on the screenplay.

whatever. the beat is hot, though.

i’m still on the fence about ms. minaj, but sometimes she wins me over through sheer force of will, even though i’m tired of seeing female singers drop it low (think of your knees, ladies!). i still can’t decide if her weirdness is true and from the heart, like missy elliott, or if it’s totally manufactured.

either way, the beat is hot.

(that’s my go-to for after i’ve voiced my confusion on a topic. “i don’t know if i’ll just stick to a 401K or if i should roll it over to an IRA. either way, that beat is hot.”)

will.i.am has two new songs. here’s the first one.

and here is the latest one.

will.i.am is taking recycling to a whole new level, maybe. i’ll tell you this - i’m hoping that every song on this CD has mick jagger on the hook, bleating about going hard or going home. EVERY SONG. including a power ballad and a dancehall track.

and while we’re talking about nonsensical mick jagger decisions, are you familiar with superheavy? it’s a “super” group that’s comprised of mick, joss stone, dave stewart from the eurythmics, a.r. rahman, and damian “jr. gong” marley. yep.

one hundred monkeys in a room with a bag of darts and a master list of top charting artists on billboard from 1990-2011 would not have been able to come up with a more random collection.

last night a friend was telling me about a recent birthday weekend, booze-based hookup. she was at the spot, kind of dancing with this dude and…i’ll let her take it from here.

“so i had, like, two huge glasses of cider,” she said. “huge. like, 44 ounces of cider.”

“you drank a big gulp of cider,” i nodded.

“ha. right. then someone bought me an IPA, so i was feeling good. now when i’m tipsy i get handsy and we’re kind of dancing so i just reached around to see what he was working with, then we…”

i held my hand up. “wait, hold up. you did what?”

she laughed. “i just wanted to see what was what.”

“you put your hand on his dick? you reached around and felt his junk?”

“i get handsy,” she shrugged.

okay, guys. i rarely drink so i don’t know if i’m doing it right. should i be handsy? i have another friend who runs her finger in your cleavage when she gets drunk. is that how drunk should be done? is this how people are getting it in? jeez, i can’t do anything right. when i get drunk i either yell at the television more than usual or fall asleep.

as i sat at my desk today, i could hear crowds start to gather for the MLK Day parade/march/rally.

every year since the mid 80’s - since before it became a national holiday - there has been a parade/march/rally on MLK Day in atlanta. it starts downtown, on peachtree street, with a few marching bands and some black fraternities. as it moves through the city, winding up at the king center, groups & organizations file in from the sidewalk. by the time it gets to its destination, there are a lot of people and it’s kind of crunk - a peaceful crunk, but crunk nonetheless. when i was a tween, my family would go to the final leg of the parade and watch. i learned the word “redbone” at an MLK Day parade; some male spectators were good and drunk by the time a dance team sauntered by and they yelled, “what’s good, redbone?” i looked at my father. “light skinned,” he said with a shrug and a chuckle.

my current office is a block from the start of the parade route, so it doesn’t last very long. it’s still nice to watch though, either from my window on the 22nd floor or from in front of my building. earlier i took a little break and went downstairs to get a snack & check things out. i ended up walking behind two white women, definitely from elsewhere, exiting the trade show at the merchandise mart. they were each pulling oversized purses on wheels and they were getting jostled a bit. suddenly they took in their surroundings; their eyes widened and one leaned in to the other, whispering frantically. i gotta be honest with you - it was pretty funny.

it reminded me of my friends who have relocated. they’ve all told me that when they tell someone that they’re from atlanta, they hear the same thing: “atlanta, huh?…a lot of black people there, huh?”

sure, atlanta is a spot of blue in a big red state, but the racial tension is still pretty high. i will say this for the (white)people of atlanta: they at least see black people. they interact with them every day. it’s damn near impossible not to in this city. i helped a white friend get a job here and while showing him around, i asked him if he was okay being around black people. he was, of course, and he maybe thought that i was crazy, but i told him, “look. there are a lot of black people in atlanta. and you may be okay with that in theory, but i’ve known some people who were not used to it and it freaked them out.” i just don’t want anyone to suddenly look up and find that they’ve wandered into an MLK Day parade and clutch their pearls.